ALB
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I saw someone selling "Socialist Worker" so I thought I'd buy a copy to see what they had to say about the elections. They are a junior partner in TUSC and call for a vote for TUSC but only seem to give prominence to TUSC candidates who are SWP members. In Oxford there are conspicious by their absence in the campaign for the TUSC candidate there, who is a member of SPEW and is virtually just a one-man show.Where there is no TUSC candidate their position is to vote Labour:
Quote:Millions of workers who do not think much of Ed Miliband will nevertheless vote Labour to eject the Tories and block Ukip. In a withered and distorted way Labour retains a link to organised workers through the union leaders. If there is no left or radical candidate then we are for voting Labour.Outgoing Green MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas is identified as one "radical candidate". But "in Scotland where there is no socialist candidate it is impossible to call simply for a Labour vote or for an SNP one", leaving their folowers in such places not knowing which way to turn.Basically, they want a Labour government..
Young Master Smeet wrote:Looks like today is Republic day.Actually, it's the queen's real birthday. Here's what our candidates in Oxford replied:
Quote:Yes, the socialist society we envisage is incompatible with the existence of the monarchy as well as with all other aristocratic and capitalist privilege but equally with the existence of the capitalist state, whether republic or monarchy.Meanwhile one of our candidates there, Mike Foster, in Oxdord West & Abingdon, is described in a letter in today's Oxford Mail as "an unreconstructed 'commimist'". Actually, he is but doubtless not in the sense the writer meant.
Video of the hustings in Botley, near Oxford, last Friday from a local on-line newspaper:http://www.oxfordshireguardian.co.uk/hustings-text/Mike appears about 3.36 minutes in for a minute and a half. Only problem is that we're again called in the accompanying text the "Socialist Workers Party". It seems that in remotest Oxfordshire that's all they've heard about socialism. A correction has been asked for and will no doubt be made. This evening Mike ventures even deeper into remote Oxfordshire, to a hustings at Wooton and Dry Sandford Community Centre.
The passage in bold comes from part 2 of the Communist Manifesto:https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htmIt's near the end, introducing the (in)famous 10 points that Marx and Engels thought the proletariat should implement if it got control of political power in 1848 (though there was a fat chance of that).
Our candidates get emails from all sorts of campaigning groups asking them to pledge support for particular measures they want. Here's the reply of Kevin Parkin, our standing in Oxford East, to a questionnaire from a local cyclists' group:http://www.cyclox.org/raising-the-profile-of-cycling-in-oxford/elections-2/may-2015-general-election/kevin-par
I don't know what it's like in the other constituencies we're contesting (or in the rest of the country) but in Oxford there are a record number of hustings (one nearly every evening last week and one every evening next week) with record turn-outs (200 in Abingdon and 150 last night in Botley, near Oxford). Maybe people like the Question Time formula. Not that have been much fireworks, at least not in Oxford West but then the UKIP candidate there has not turned up at any hustings since being exposed as a racist and homophobe. Their candidate in Oxford East, who has turned up, has been more circumspect emphasing the lack of accountability of politicians rather than the usual UKIP xenophobia.There's still a problem with selective hustings in Oxford East, this time involving the BBC:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/elections_2015/12896113.Hustings_chaos__one_abandoned_when__excluded__candidate_while_woman_talked_down_from_balcony_at_another/?ref=mac
Only a couple of snags with the deliveryof our election leaflets by our printers to Royal Mail: Swansea went to the wrong address (which Royal Mail gave us) and the ones for Islington were delivered too late. This means that these won't go out to suboffices for delivery to houses until Monday and so won't be in elector's hands till Tuesday.Everything went ok for the other 8 constituencies. Electors there should be getting our leaflet tomorrow.
Now Andrew Neill jokes that SPGB stands for Special Patrol Group … You can't win on this name question !
TUSC's own-produced Party Election Broadcast is also on today at these times:Friday April 17th….. BBC2: 5.55pm… ITV: 6.25pm… BBC1: 6.55pm… Channel4: 7.55pmif anybody wants to watch theirs as well as ours and contrast and compare (Revolution and Reform).
Here's the result of a ballot yesterday by six formers at a school in Oxford West & Abingdon after hearing representatives of all the candidates (except UKIP, which got no votes anyway):https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FqpZmfbmJSz6bGkrYE-WZw65AcVa4CRk9aV31x8vYAI/edit(Now we are ex-Militant )I don't know if the result means anything but this was not in an area where you would expect Labour to come second, let alone first. Doesn't say much for the future of the Tories either (unless people get less radical as they get older). Our 2 votes had to be write-in votes as our party was not on the ballot papers given to the students.Report of the meeting in this morning's Oxford Mail:http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/elections_2015/12893005.Candidates_go_back_to_school_to_debate_housing_and_uni_fees/
Lambeth Council has invited all candidates in constituencies in the borough to present their case in a few hundred words. Here's that from our candidate in Vauxhall, Danny Lambert:http://www.lambeth.gov.uk/general-election-7-may-2015-vauxhall-candidates#danny-lambert—the-socialist-party-of-great-britain
Our candidates were invited to put over our/their case in 30 seconds. Here's three who took up the offer (filmed at Head Office over Conference using the same basic text):https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=SZTmCcxrCQEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=btxMpZ3c63Ahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H5L2njvcaQ4
gnome wrote:BTW, an email has been sent to the organisers of the Botley hustings advising of them of their error in describing us as the SWPGB.Yes of course. That was done straightaway.
Oh dear! Now we're the SWP:http://botleyhinksey.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Which-way-to-vote.pdfNot as bad as last night, at a hustings in the Marston part of Oxford, where our candidate was introduced as from the "National Socialist Party". Whatever the nostalgics here for using the full name all the time might think, the arguments for calling ourselves (except in legal, historial and ceremonial contexts) the Socialist Party are just as valid today as they were when the party voted for this at the end of the 1980s. "Great Britain" does have natiinalistic connotations, whatever people say.Apart from that the hustings was one of the best as the candidates were allowed five minutes to make their case and the questions were about world rather than parochial affairs (despite being in a church — packed with 80 people, no doubt more than they get on a Sunday).Another two this evening, one at Oxford Brookes University and the other in the Guildhall in Abingdon.
And here's what happened next ….http://www.marxist.net/namechange/mainframe.htm
